Fall 2022 Outreach

By Lisa Buckner

Fig. 1: Huw James and Karl Schleicher talk to students at Dulles Math & Science Night (Photo credit: Lisa Buckner)

Fig. 2: Karl Schleicher and Lisa Buckner explain seismic data acquisition at Dulles Math & Science Night (Photo credit: Huw James)

Math and Science Night @Dulles High School (Fort Bend ISD) on Friday, November 18. Huw James, Karl Schleicher, and Lisa Buckner hosted a booth (Figure 1 and Figure 2). The event was organized by Dulles High School Science National Honor Society students and attended by Fort Bend ISD elementary and middle school students and their families.

There were over 60 booths. Our GSH booth, one by UH students, and the rest were hosted by high school students. More than a dozen high school students from the other booths visited us to learn about geophysics. Many or whom acted very interested and thanked us for attending. We gave away “Earth is calling … will you answer?” brochure/posters and 106 coiled toy springs.

2022 National STEM Day Celebration (Alief ISD) was held at Kerr High School on Saturday, November 5th. According to labor projections and the Texas Education Agency, "Texas is expected to have the second-highest percentage of the nation’s future STEM job opportunities. In an effort to ensure our students are prepared for this future workforce, we would like to encourage you to engage students interested in STEM careers this year.” Lisa Buckner and Jagadish Maddiboyina hosted the GSH booth with a little help from Jagadish’s 5 year old son. HGS had a classroom speaker instead of a booth. The event was attended by Alief ISD students in grades 4 – 12. Most of the students were in grades 4 - 7. We used the light-animated seismic survey acquisition board to explain how sound waves move through the subsurface and then showed them our cut-away geophone receiver. We demonstrated sound wave motion using a coiled toy spring and showed them an interpreted seismic line. Some students took interest in our Texas rock samples. We gave away all 150 coiled toy springs that we brought to the event and many took an “Earth is calling … will you answer?” brochure/poster.

Houston Energy Day Festival was held at the City of Houston's Sam Houston Park (south of the City Hall) on Saturday October 15, 2022. The GSH did not have a booth but Huw James attended for GSH & ECH. HGS did not attend but the SPE had a booth that was well attended and AAPL (Landmen) had a booth. NASA, RICE, UH, Prairie View had booths as did University of Wyoming. The ECH and AIChE shared an exhibit tent as previously. In all, there were about 35 booths and a very large Frac'ing rig at the event. This compares with about 70 booths during pre-COVID years. The weather was great and Prairie View had a robot basketball player that drew lots of attention.

Fig. 3: Rene Mott at STEM/Nova Day (Photo credit: Huw James)

STEM/Nova Day @HMNS was held on Saturday, October 5. The annual event targets Boy Scouts that spend the night at the museum as well as the general public. Rena Mott and Huw James hosted the GSH Outreach booth in the Grand Hall (Figure 3). They gave away 80 coiled toy springs.